G

enesis ends on an almost
serene note. Jacob has found
his long-lost son. The family
has been reunited. Joseph has forgiven
his brothers. Under his protection and
influence, the family has settled in
Goshen, one of the most prosperous
regions of Egypt. They now
have homes, property, food,
the protection of Joseph
and the favor of Pharaoh.
It must have seemed one
of the golden moments of
Abraham’s family’s history.
Then, as has happened so
often since, “There arose a
new Pharaoh who did not know Joseph.”
There was a political climate change. The
family fell out of favor. Pharaoh told his
advisers: “Look, the Israelite people are
becoming too numerous and strong for
us” — the first time the word “people” is
used in the Torah with reference to the
children of Israel. “Let us deal shrewdly

with them, so that they may not
increase.” And so, the whole mechanism
of oppression moves into operation:
forced labor that turns into slavery that
becomes attempted genocide.
The story is engraved in our memory.
We tell it every year, and in summary-
form in our prayers, every day. It is
part of what it is to be a Jew. Yet there
is one phrase that shines out from the
narrative: “But the more they were
oppressed, the more they increased and
the more they spread.” That, no less
than oppression itself, is part of what it
means to be a Jew. The worse things get,
the stronger we become. Jews are the
people who not only survive but thrive
in adversity.
Jewish history is not merely a story of
Jews enduring catastrophes that might
have spelled the end to less tenacious
groups. It is that after every disaster, Jews
renewed themselves. They discovered
some hitherto hidden reservoir of spirit

that fueled new forms of collective
self-expression as the carriers of God’s
message to the world.

DEALING WITH ADVERSITY
Every tragedy begat new creativity.
After the division of the kingdom
following the death of Solomon came
the great literary prophets, Amos and
Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Out of the
destruction of the First Temple and the
Babylonian exile came the renewal of
Torah in the life of the nation, beginning
with Ezekiel and culminating in the
vast educational program brought back
to Israel by Ezra and Nehemiah. From
the destruction of the Second Temple
came the immense literature of rabbinic
Judaism, until then preserved mostly in
the form of an oral tradition: Mishnah,
Midrash and Gemara.
From the Crusades came the Hassidei
Ashkenaz, the North European school
of piety and spirituality. Following the

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

Turning Curses
into
Blessings

38 | DECEMBER 23 • 2021

Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks